This is a crazy idea that I've had in the back of my head for a couple years now. I've always wanted to use aluminum trussing for a home theater, but it's pretty expensive stuff. At $150 to $250 per 3' section, it would cost me about $4,000 to build my "master plan". A fairly steep investment for a fairly half-baked idea.
So, I decided that I'd build a prototype truss out of wood dowels just to see if the idea would pan out. I bought enough dowels to build eight 3' truss sections, which came out to about $170. And, I had to buy a drill press, which I picked up for $95 down at Sears. All-in-all, not an expensive project, and, at the very least, it gave me a good excuse to buy a drill press.
Here's the first 8"x8"x3' prototype section (left), and a single side of the section (right)...
I'll build three of these 3' sections and join them into a single 9' section. I'll then test how much weight the 9' section can carry in the middle without sagging. The projector that I'm planning to buy weighs in at a fairly hefty 25 pounds. I'm not utterly confident that the truss will remain straight with that much weight on it, but if it doesn't, that just means I'll have to build more supports to hold it up.
If it works well, then I'll probably write a "how to" web page. In the mean time, I'll post regular updates here.
-Brian
So, I decided that I'd build a prototype truss out of wood dowels just to see if the idea would pan out. I bought enough dowels to build eight 3' truss sections, which came out to about $170. And, I had to buy a drill press, which I picked up for $95 down at Sears. All-in-all, not an expensive project, and, at the very least, it gave me a good excuse to buy a drill press.
Here's the first 8"x8"x3' prototype section (left), and a single side of the section (right)...
I'll build three of these 3' sections and join them into a single 9' section. I'll then test how much weight the 9' section can carry in the middle without sagging. The projector that I'm planning to buy weighs in at a fairly hefty 25 pounds. I'm not utterly confident that the truss will remain straight with that much weight on it, but if it doesn't, that just means I'll have to build more supports to hold it up.
If it works well, then I'll probably write a "how to" web page. In the mean time, I'll post regular updates here.
-Brian
